Video games and virtual reality systems have become ever more popular due to the marketing toward, and resulting participation from, casual gamers. In a typical implementation, a computer system displays a visual or graphical environment to a user on a display device. Users can interact with the displayed environment by inputting commands or data from a controller or peripheral device. The computer updates the environment in response to the user's manipulation of a moved manipulandum such as a joystick handle and provides visual feedback to the user using a display screen.
Conventional video game devices or controllers use visual and auditory cues to provide feedback to a user. In some controller or peripheral devices, kinesthetic feedback (such as active and resistive haptic feedback) and/or tactile feedback (such as vibration, texture, and heat) is also provided to the user, more generally known collectively as “haptic feedback” or “haptic effects.” Haptic feedback can provide cues that enhance and simplify the user controller or peripheral device. For example, vibration effects, or vibrotactile haptic effects, may be useful in providing cues to users of electronic devices to alert the user to specific events, or provide realistic feedback to create greater sensory immersion within a simulated or virtual environment. Conventional haptic feedback systems for gaming and other devices generally include an actuator for generating the haptic feedback attached to the housing of the controller/peripheral. More particularly, motors or other actuators of the controller or peripheral device are housed within the controller and are connected to the controlling computer system. The computer system receives sensor signals from the controller or peripheral device and sends appropriate haptic feedback control signals to the actuators. The actuators then provide haptic feedback to a user of the controller. The computer system can thus convey physical sensations to the user in conjunction with other visual and auditory feedback.
Gaming peripherals may include triggers, buttons, joysticks, joypads, etc., that are used to control events in the game. These triggers can include haptic features to further enhance and provide a more immersive experience for the player. The gaming peripheral may have one or more triggers and the trigger actuator may provide vibrotactile and/or kinesthetic haptic effects.
Haptic effects on gaming peripheral triggers can increase immersion in a video game, but can also induce fatigue during long gameplay sessions. Fatigue can manifest in many ways, including physical fatigue due to long periods of haptic feedback and perception fatigue where haptic effects are not perceived as strongly due to overstimulation. Others have tried to solve this by weakening haptic effects overall or by pre-programmed fading out of effects. However, this does not provide an optimal haptic and immersive experience in the greatest number of situations, as it is very hard to predict how a user will proceed in a given video game.